Closer to God
by ZheM
Summary: Naruto's memory of the battle at The Valley of the End.


I write this having read 323 chapters of manga but there shouldn't be a need for spoiler warnings. Even though my mind has definitely begun to spoil. Ah well, someone needs to start praying for my GW fiction, cause it's slowing down as I get angstiness from Naruto. I almost called this one "Rest in Pieces" but then I was thinking that "Closer to God" might fit a little better, which means I can use "Rest in Pieces" later. Very good cause that one's gonna be for GW. YAY!

Closer to God  
00000

Time heals all wounds; at least that's what Jiraiya told him everyday as they waited be his shoulder to heal. It took a mere few days for the pain to fade away enough for him to perform even simple jutsus. After a week there wasn't even the slightest twinge to remind him of the pain he had felt. Of course, scars take much longer to fade. That was his constant reminder, every time he took of his shirt for a bath, every time he stretched a little further than what that shoulder was used to, that scar reminded him of a day he would never forget. Even if Naruto lived to be a hundred years old, he could still see the joy in Sasuke's eyes as he shoved his fist through his chest. He could still smell the blood that rained upon the ground beneath him and he could still feel the way Sasuke had wiggled his fingers inside Naruto's body.

Kyuubi had refused to completely heal the scar and its subsequent irritability. He enjoyed using it to taunt the blonde. _Failure, Dead Last, how will you ever be Hokage when you couldn't even stop a piss ant like the Uchiha?_ Of course fighting with his own mental faculties was tiring and an extreme drain on his stamina, so Jiraiya frequently had to stop whatever it was he was teaching because Naruto just couldn't keep up. For the first time in his life he began to get discouraged. What if he really was as bad as they'd all said? If he couldn't even change Sasuke's mind, and they had been teammates, then how on earth was he going to change the minds of an entire village?

Naruto wouldn't ever admit it to his mentor but his dreams had changed since that day more than a year ago. It wasn't a very noticeable change, the differences taking him by surprise. He always started out sitting on the top of Hokage Mountain, almost always on the head of the Fourth but sometimes sitting on top of the Third, but instead of looking down on Konoha, he was staring out over the cliffs at the Valley of the End. Water poured down into the reserve below him and he was at peace. He would sit there as the sun moved slowly through the sky until finally, just before the sun touched the horizon again; the sound of blows landing would draw him out of the trance the world had put him in.

As Naruto finally turned his face away from the water flowing in front of him, it took him only a moment to find the source of the noise. As he drifted closer to the two boys who seemed hell bent on inflicting more damage than his counterpart, words became clear to him. They were speaking like they were friends but Naruto could tell from the fighting stances and the blows they had already landed were hardly friendly.

"You're actually serious about this," the young blonde asked, pausing to wipe away a trickle of blood from his lips. "Dammit." He looked hard at the brunette standing a short distance away.

"Yeah…I'm serious," the darker haired boy told him. "I intended to kill you," he finished, his voice becoming sharp as he finished the sentence.

The blonde seemed to take offense at those words, his eyes becoming harder and his teeth gritting together. "…Do you… no longer consider me as your friend…" he managed to bite out through clenched teeth. Everything we did together as Team 7. Was it all just meaningless to you?"

The pale boy bowed his head and smiled. "…No…" he closed his eyes. _No matter what happens I will get that power_ his mind whispered before it became another voice. _However, there is a requirement. You must kill…Your closest friend _Itachi reminded him. "…It was not meaningless…To me, you have become…"

He slowly raised his head to once again face the blonde boy and opened his eyes revealing his Sharingan. "…My closest friend."

As Naruto watched these two young boys begin fighting again his brows furrowed together. There was something so familiar about these boys, something familiar about this situation, he just couldn't place it. The battle in front of him escalated quickly and when the pale boy held the other in one hand as his other began to glow an electric blue, Naruto knew it was over. The blonde had lost. And he was going to die. And Naruto was going to watch.

He couldn't just watch… That would be the same as if he was the one preparing to shove a hand through the slight blonde's chest. A fragment of memory struck him but it wasn't enough to deter him. He had to stop this. Naruto was running toward the two boys before his mind could catch up to the fact that his feet were not only moving, but were bringing him closer to danger.

Before he could blink he had pushed his way between them and flung the smaller blonde away. Naruto sighed in relief that though the boy was injured he would not die. Though he was rewarded for his trouble by taking the other blonde's place as a fist crackling with electric energy was shoved through his chest just below his collarbone.

The tears were automatic. His eyes welled up with them before he even realized that the burning sensation he was feeling was intense pain. The blood took a little longer. It welled up in the hole in his chest before beginning to flow down his chest. The flow was slow, stemmed by the hand currently twisting in the gaping hole where his skin used to be.

At last his eyes cleared and he could remember. "Sa…suke," he asked, confusion, marring his features. "It's you? It's you and me," he choked out around a mouthful of blood. "I don't understand. Have we been here before? I know this, we've done this. And you left. You always leave, won't you," he gasped as he felt fingers brush over his heart. The sensation was one he'd never felt before as Kyuubi tried to heal him around the wrist and hand still inside him.

Sasuke smiled. "I'm already gone," he wrapped his fingers further around Naruto's heart. "You bring me closer to God." And he began to squeeze.

000

It was needless to say that Naruto preferred not to dream. Waking up next to an overly friendly sennin while clutching his heart tight enough to leave a bruise on anyone else was not his favorite way to start the day, of course the worst part was that it had almost come true.

00000

Can anyone else tell that I am completely obsessed with The Valley of the End and what happened there and the consequences of it? Ok, up until the whole "closest friend" thing I got the dialogue straight from my translation of the manga.

I'm thinking that if I do another after this, it'll be called "Two Steps Behind". Hmm, just thought about that. I'm listening to Def Leppard, they are awesome, the best band to come out of Britain since Queen…though they might have been first, not too sure. And then after that it'll be "Everything About You". Hehe, 3 Days Grace, another good band.

And I think the last chapter of all of these will be called "Goodbye Time"… mmm Blake Shelton.


End file.
